Breaking Free
by finalius
Summary: Read half-vampire Alex' story as he alters the events of Breaking Dawn to change his own life
1. Unexpected Call

Frank, the site foreman walked up to me. "Son, …". Ha. 'Son', I thought. I'm a couple of decades older than you, Pop! "Son, I must say I'm impressed with your work. You look fit – that's why I hired you – but I didn't expect this! You've been laying bricks for nine hours and you don't show any signs of fatigue. Plus, you've come further than my best men."

Oops. This was my first day, and Frank's compliment much too close for comfort. I couldn't get my cover blown already, simply because I couldn't afford disappearing again.  
>"I've been doing a lot of exercising, but I'll surely have sore muscles until the weekend!" I lied.<p>

I thought taking a job as a construction worker would be easy, because physical activity was as easy as breathing for me, and the jobs were not that hard to get. After my first day, I realized it was almost harder than before. Not because of the work, but to keep my cover. I could never forget to show a little aching when lifting 50 pounds of bricks, rather than taking the pile under one arm and adding a second under the other. It would have been too obvious.

"Quite possibly, Son." Frank went on. I ranted some more about his use of the word 'son' in my head. "Now make sure that everything is secure. Frank is going to hit tonight!" Frank laughed over his shoulder as he left. His running gag was dead after the first day already. Hurricane Frank was in the Gulf of Mexico and about to hit the West Coast of Florida. Nothing too terrible, it'll make landfall as a category one hurricane or just a tropical storm. Still, everything had to be secured.

I stayed in a cheap motel here in Cape Coral, just south of Fort Myers, Florida. Money was tight at the moment. I've made some good cash working as a field agent for the German intelligence, but I've spent a lot of it to get my new paperwork. An American passport was all my source could get me. I would have preferred staying in Europe, but it's hard to get a visa as an "American" in the European Union these days. The fact that I've lived longer in Europe than the most conservative politicians responsible for the strict visa regulations meant little. And I couldn't bring up that argument anyway.

Life is tricky as a half-vampire. Surely, you have some advantages. You don't age for instance. Looking twenty-five forever, who doesn't dream of that? You don't get sick either. Plus, humans think you look absolutely gorgeous.

But it has its downsides, too. You can't stay too long in the same area, because people notice that you still look twenty-five when you're supposed to be thirty. People notice if you walk faster than you should be able to. Also, you can't afford getting into any accidents, because you don't get injuries, or if you do, you heal within hours rather than months. You can never have any doctor examine you. First the needles they'd try to stick into your arm would break, and then your bloodwork would probably cause all their equipment to blow up.

And it gets worse. I can only imagine how bad the thirst must be for real vampires, but it's hard enough for me. And vampires don't bother, they drink. I tried to resist, and I was getting good at it. I haven't had human blood in almost eighty years, except for a little sip I allowed myself of a dead terrorist's body during a mission in Afghanistan. I got used to resisting the appealing smell humans present. But I'm only half a vamp, so only half the thirst? I didn't know that for sure. In fact, I knew very little about myself. Why? Because I had nobody I could compare myself to. Because I was one of a kind. Because I was alone.

I lived among the humans because they pose no threat to me. All the vampires who knew of my existence were dead. If dying is what they do when they … expire. I tried to keep out of the vampire world. My father, responsible for the vamp-genes in my system, told me about this bunch of vampires called The Volturi. And about their collecting boss Aro. He didn't collect art. He collected living things. Or things that appeared living I should say, since most pieces of his collection were actually dead, just still moving. I didn't know what the Volturi would do if they found out about my existence. I could only think of two things, and I didn't like either. They'd hunt me down, either to have me as their special pet, or to kill me.

I'd put my money on the latter. Maybe they would have made an exception for me being one of a kind. But it was my gift that nailed my coffin shut. My gift was extremely useless the way I lived my life, but the vampires were threatened by it. More than that, they were terrified. So I was pretty sure that the Volturi would want me dead once they knew what I was able to do.

And I couldn't spend my days with other vamps either, because of Aro's gift. Aro knows lots of vamps. In fact, he probably knows pretty much all of them. And whenever he had a little reunion with one of his kind, he'd briefly collect all of their thoughts, simply by touching them. Translation: if any vampire knew about me, eventually Aro would know about me.

So I thought I'd make my existence as useful as possible among the humans. I've been on the police force, on SWAT-Teams, and most recently, an anti-terrorism unit. Behind enemy lines, cut off from all contact with base, extremely dangerous. For humans that is. The terrorist's AK 47 didn't pose a real threat to me. For me it was all about whether I felt like dodging a couple of bullets first, or whether I killed the shooter before he could even point his gun in my direction.

I lived among the humans, and yet I couldn't get too close to them. A hug was pretty much all I could stand, the furthest I wanted to test my self-control. I didn't date. Not because I wasn't into girls, but where would it lead? I've tried kissing once, fifty years ago, and it was a close call. Going any further than this would lead to two things: One human girl, dead. And one red-eyed half-vampire who hated himself for the next decade, possibly longer. I was depressed enough with my life as it was, so I didn't need another reason to be miserable.

Also, I had to move every five or so years. These five year periods were very clear chapters in my life. Every time I had to start over, a new chapter would begin.

I had just closed one of those chapters. And I made a mistake I usually don't make. I had made friends. Most of them work related, but I got kind of too close to a girl named Leila. I even said goodbye, something I usually don't. For me, it was easier to let go, I was used to it. She was struggling more with it, and I could tell that she didn't buy my cover story. But it didn't matter. I could have let her in to my secret, but at what a price? Exposing the existence of vampires was all they really cared about. If I told her about vampires, I'd have put her on the same death roll as me.

But despite all that, I still missed her. More than I should. Anyway, it was all over now, because I was now Mark Palmer, twenty-two years old, American Citizen. I aimed for low age this time. Maybe I could stay until Mark Palmer turned thirty.

I was lost in those thoughts and listening to the wind and rain which introduced the soon to follow storm when the motel phone rang. Must be the reception I thought as I answered, hoping they wouldn't evacuate the place.

"Hello?"  
>"Good evening Mr. Palmer. Or shall I say, Special Agent Schnell?" The voice asked in an Arabic accent.<p>

I though several things as I heard the voice I did not recognize. I got my dad's mind in terms of speed, memory and sharpness. I could process thoughts at a rate much quicker than humans, and follow several trails at the same time.

The voice knew my former alias, knew that I used to be Special Agent Alex Schnell, German intelligence. Did he really know who … or better said, what I was, or did he just get the information out of the guy who made my new passport? And the Arabic accent was weird, too. Maybe somebody I pissed off in Afghanistan? Pakistan? Vampires didn't live in the Middle East. Too much sun for one thing, too superstitious people for another. Plus he didn't have a vampire-like voice, not melodic enough, so I was quite sure he was human.

"Who is this?" I asked.  
>"My name is not important. What's important is that I have your friend, the very charming Leila. What a lovely girl. It would be too bad if anything happened to her…"<br>Fuck. Shit. Crap. Why her? The only person on the planet I actually give a shit about. The only way to get some leverage over me. I kept my voice overly cool when I interrupted him.  
>"Let me guess, you want me in exchange for her and torture me to dead, because I did something that upset you."<br>"Very good, Agent Schnell. You're really thinking 'schnell', as your name suggests! You should have taken more care of your tracks. Actually, you did excellent work, but Leila here tracked you down to Florida. It was much easier to follow her than it was to follow you."

'_Bloody fucking bitch!_' I thought. _'I told you to leave me alone, that I had to go, why didn't you just listen just this motherfucking once?'_ It wasn't normal for me to lose my calm, even in my thoughts. I didn't like that Leila was in trouble because of me.

However, I could fix this. It would be much easier than when I was with the intelligence. They wanted reports. And in those reports I couldn't say "I walked into the terrorist camp, killed everyone in five seconds with my bare hands and left". But this was exactly what I would do this time.

"Where and when?" I asked.  
>"Tonight. Come to Fort Myers. Start driving now. Don't call your friends." Good. He thought I was human and needed reinforcements.<br>"There's a hurricane out there, I'm not sure if I'll make it."  
>"You'll find a possibility, Agent Schnell". The way he said that word, possibility, reminded me of someone. Mohammed Al-Khamis. A right hand of Osama bin Laden. I tracked him down in Pakistan and killed him and his company. Killed was probably the wrong word. Made an example fits it better. This guy was either a close friend or even related to him. Which meant that Leila was in big trouble.<br>"Let me speak to Leila first!" I demanded. In his plans for tonight, there would be no exchange, of that I was sure. He wanted to kill us both. And he was right, no exchange would take place. Only everything else would go down differently than he expected it. He put Leila on the phone.  
>"Alex, it's seven of them", she said in German before her voice was cut off. Brave girl. Yet their numbers didn't matter for me. But she didn't know that.<p>

The voice gave me an address, and I agreed to be there.


	2. Family Vacation

I packed my guns, although I wouldn't need them. Old habits die hard.

I could have run to Fort Myers, but maybe they had somebody watch my motel. So I lit up a cigarette, hopped into the rental – way too slow for my taste – and started driving. I watched out for scouts, but couldn't see any. Clearly, Mohammed's best buddy had no idea what was coming.

It was raining and windy, but the storm wasn't at its worst just yet. When I pulled into the driveway of the address he gave me, two guys with guns were expecting me. I got out of the car, showing my hands. "I'm unarmed" I said. Wrong. You're looking at my weapons right now.  
>"Welcome, Agent Schnell" one of them said. I was standing in the rain, they were under the roof. When I walked towards them, hands still raised, the other stroke out to punch me in the stomach. I could have stopped him, or dodged, or made a double somersault over him to land on his other side, but I didn't. Instead, I let him feel vampire skin. It was like he punched a concrete wall. I heard the sound of cracking bones. My cover was blown, time for action.<p>

In half a second I snapped the other guy's neck, and kicked the guy with the now broken hand through the door. I chased after him, now running at full speed. I saw six guards and Leila on a chair, blind-folded. Perfect, so she wouldn't see how I was going to mess this place up. Somebody was standing next to her, pointing a gun at her head. His face was familiar. Definitely related to Mohammed Al-Khamis, the guy I killed in Pakistan. I smashed him against the wall, making sure he would survive the blow. Everyone else was still looking at the door, trying to see something. I was moving too quickly for them to see more than a blur. I decided to kill everyone else, and then have a quick chat with Mohammed's relative. The killing task took me three point seven four seconds.

I walked over to the guy, now in human speed, enjoying the fear in his eyes. I smiled.  
>"You … I didn't believe… I thought Ahmed went crazy because you've killed all his brothers. But you are … not human."<br>Crap. Somebody must have survived back in Pakistan. Very unlikely, I thought. I was too good at my job, and even better at hiding that I was too good at it. But the evidence seemed clear. How else would he know?  
>"You knew what I'm able to do, and yet you walked right into it? How stupid!" I laughed. He grabbed my hand, then went on "But you're not cold … and your eyes are not red… What are you?" I couldn't let him talk further. He was about to expose the vampires, and I had to protect Leila from knowing about them. Or she might show up on the Volturi hunt-list. Something not even I could protect her from. Before I finished my thought, his neck snapped between my hands.<br>"Alex?" Leila whispered.  
>"It's okay Leila, you're safe now. But I don't want you to see this, so I'll walk you outside with the blindfold still on, okay?" I didn't wait for her answer. Instead, I ripped her cuffs apart and carried her outside, and back to the car. Inside the car, I took her blindfold off.<p>

"Alex!" she shouted as she fell around my neck. Perfect. I've smelled gallons of blood inside the room, and now I had a human just an inch away from my mouth. It took everything I had to not take a big gulp.

After a lot of sobbing and half-finished sentences, she finally got it back together as I was already driving towards Miami. The rain was stronger now, but I had to get out of the country or at least the state. Somebody knew my cover, time to start over… again.

After countless "thank you"s, Leila became awfully quiet. First I thought she was in shock, but she seemed focused. She opened her mouth a couple of times, then closed it again without saying anything. Like she was looking for words to tell me something.  
>"Alex", Leila said eventually, "I know that you're … special. I know that you can move faster than anyone I've ever seen … unnaturally fast. I know that there were seven men, at least. I didn't hear a single gun-shot, and yet they all ended up dead. I know your kind, and …"<br>I interrupted her. "You know my … kind?"  
>"Yes. I didn't make the connection until now. It all just happened in the last couple of hours. I was working Check-in just before they kidnapped me. There was a large group of Italians. Twenty-four I think. And they too, moved weird. Some moved too … smoothly?" She made it sound like a question. "I didn't think anything of it. But one of them, a young girl, had brown eyes at first. But when I looked back at her a couple of minutes later, they were reddish-brown, and some minutes later, they were bright red. Another member of the group said something about her contacts, and she left for the bathroom, returning with brown eyes again."<p>

"And this other passenger… I touched his hand when he handed me the passports, and it was ice cold. That's what the other guy said right?" I was in shock. Leila worked at Frankfurt Airport, for Lufthansa. Had she seen twenty-four vampires? Going on vacation? Enjoying the beach, or rather a family hiking trip?  
>"You've seen what? When was that?"<br>"Just before they kidnapped me and flew me to the US." She tried to make out the time. Since she's been blindfolded for most of the flight, she couldn't.  
>"Yeah, but those twenty-four … passengers. Where were they headed, and where were they coming from?"<br>Leila looked like she was thinking. "They came from Italy, to the US. You're not…"  
>From Italy? To the US? Now I was in panic.<br>"Shut up Leila. Think. Which city in Italy did they come from? Where exactly did they fly to? You need to remember!" I shouted.  
>Leila had never seen me lose my temper. Neither had I, in the last fifty years. But it was twice for today already. She was surprised, but answered my question.<br>"They came from Rome … and flew to Seattle. They missed their plane in Frankfurt, they had to wait twelve hours for the next flight. They weren't happy about it".  
>Seattle… Phew. They were on their way to the other side of the country. Still, the only group of vampires this large in existence was the Volutri, and these vamps started their journey in Rome, so I was positive it was them. What were they doing in Seattle? I haven't heard a story in which they actually left Volterra.<p>

And then it hit me. All the Volturis? Jane, Alec, Demetri, Aro, Caius, Renata, all the gifted vampires in a single spot? Could that be the chance I've been waiting for? My chance to escape hiding?

We were driving past a luxury rental car shop. The owner was just closing down. I pulled over. "Get out, we're switching cars", I said.


	3. Sharing My Story

I ran to the shop owner. "Hold it", I said. "I need a fast car … something really fast". The owner inspected me suspiciously. It's a bad thing to look 25 when renting expensive cars. Good thing I had my cash with me, as always. I didn't trust banks. They wanted IDs, something I more often than not was lacking. I took out five thousand dollars. "And I need it now". I could see his suspicion growing further. But during recession, nobody turns down a too-good-to-be-true offer. Within five minutes, I was the temporary owner of an Audi R8. Mark Palmer would be in big trouble for not returning it. Only, Mark Palmer would be unable to find right after he'd left the car in front of the airport. My new identity was breached already.

"Can you get my things and put them into the R8 Leila?" I handed her the keys before signing a bunch of liability papers. She was struggling with the weight of the bag, then tried to open what she thought was the trunk – it was actually the engine hood. A proper sports car has the engine at the rear. "The trunk is in the front, Leila!" We drove off soon after. "Call Miami Airport." I told her. "I don't think they have shut down because of the hurricane just yet. We need the next plane to Seattle. Call in every favor you have in the entire airline universe. We need to get there asap!" "Will you tell me what's going on if I do?" she asked. God bless Leila. Help me first, ask questions later. I would have to tell her though. She already knew too much, so she had to be warned to keep her mouth shut. "Deal" I said.

Miami was closed, but Leila managed to get us the last flight out of Fort Lauderdale, to Atlanta, and then to Seattle from there. We moved quicker than the storm, and as soon as we were out of the rain, I've hit the pedal to the metal. The needle was scratching at the 300km/h mark. Leila was used to my driving. Thank god for the German Autobahn, where this kind of speed is legal.

"Alex, you promised" Leila started… I sighted. I waited for some seconds. It's been almost a century since I've last shared my story with anyone. And that anyone was my vampire father.

"You're lucky you don't have to re-learn my name. I usually use different names through my life, but Alex is my actual name. The name my mother gave her unborn child, anyway. Of course, I've never met her. She … died … giving birth to me". I paused at the word 'died'. It was true, she had died. Giving birth however wasn't exactly true. I don't think having your baby biting its way out of your womb qualifies as giving birth. Rather as being killed by a monster. A monster some experimenting vampire planted inside of you and you were only lucky enough – or unlucky enough, depending which way you look at it – to be the first and only survivor of his test-series of over eighty women.

I started telling Leila my story, starting with my mother. She managed to escape into the woods, before the town doctor would have forced her to terminate her child. She then killed the donkey she used to escape, drank his blood and ate his flesh. Just as I drank her blood and ate her flesh, right after seeing the first light. She was already dead by then. And I was alone.

I then hunted the woods. First I just sat there, waiting for an unlucky animal to come too close so I could first drink its blood and then eat it. When I was able to walk, I started to chase down the animals. After about two months of roaming through the woods, my vampire-father eventually found me. I told Leila what he told me about the Volturi, about Aro, about the Volturi guard and their gifts, about why I thought they wanted me dead. Leila followed without interrupting, absorbing all this. I think she believed me, but it hasn't exactly sunk in that she was sitting next to an immortal who thirsted for her blood.

"So you think the Volturi want you dead, because of your gift? Then why are we going where they're going? Why aren't you running to the other side of the planet?"  
>"That's because of my gift … I think when they're all together, I can defeat them."<br>"So your gift gets stronger when there are more vampires around?" She asked confused.  
>"Not exactly …" I stalled. Telling somebody about my gift was even more delicate than telling about my existence. Once the truth about it was out there, once the Volturi knew, I would be hunted for eternity. And I had one big disadvantage when running from vampires. I had to sleep. They didn't. But I had to tell Leila. She was already in too deep.<p>

"My father was a gifted vampire. He had a gift for teaching. He could teach people things in a way nobody else could. If he wanted you to learn something, you learned it within minutes rather than days. He could even teach you things he wasn't able to do himself. Like, he could teach you Spanish better than any Spanish teacher without actually speaking it himself."

"At first we thought I had the same gift because I was very good at teaching people, too. But I soon noticed that I was only good at it while my father was around. When he left, it was like the magic was gone. I thought that it was his presence that made people learn so quickly, and that I was ungifted after all. I didn't share my observation with him tough. We weren't exactly getting along well, but I was depending on him. I couldn't just leave and walk the planet alone, looking like a child."

"Also, other people could not all of a sudden teach well when he was around. I couldn't add it all up, but I didn't think too much about it. I didn't particularly like my father. All those women he killed experimenting. He lived of human blood. I tried to live of human food for as long as possible, but cheated from time to time. By eating regular food, I could extend the time between drinking blood to a couple of months, but I got weak eventually. I didn't want to kill. So I didn't go out for hunting, until I was too weak to move. I asked my father to bring me animals, but he'd just put unconscious humans right in front of me. Eventually I became too weak to resist."

"I hated myself for killing innocents, but the murder I hated myself most for was the one which found my own existence. Killing my mother was, and still is, what gets to me. I am an abomination, and I was inside of her, hurting her, destroying her. And yet she loved me. She kept me. And how did I thank her? By breaking her bones, kicking out her spine and then bite her abdomen open so she was not only paralyzed but would also bleed to death."

"So I hated my father, but I hated myself even more. I wanted to leave, try to do some good in the world. Try to make up for the monster that I was up to this point. I had to find a meaning in my existence, or I would have gone mad. I was about six years old when I decided that I looked old enough to walk around on my own. At seven, I looked like I look now. With my father's education and my quickly developing brain, I already finished studying law and history, and was fluent in four languages".

"After some years of roaming trough Europe, I went to France, and stumbled into an exhibition of Pablo Picasso. Picasso was present himself, and when I got closer to him, I all of a sudden saw much more in his paintings. I could see the meanings behind them, and I could do great paintings myself. The feeling disappeared at once when I left the exhibition. When I tried, I was as much of an artist as a three year old toddler. At first I couldn't put the pieces together, but after a couple of days thinking I had a theory of what was going on."

"I have kind of turned my father's gift inside out. Like I'm doing the opposite of him. He was good at teaching people. I'm good at learning from people. So good, I don't even have to see them do it, being in their proximity alone is enough to be able to do what they do best. Not many humans have such strong gifts as Picasso, but it's fairly easy to copy gifted vampires."

Leila was processing all this … She was 'just' a flight attendant, but the girl wasn't dumb at all … "So … you were only good at teaching too, because you copied your father's gift of teaching. And now you think that when you're in close proximity to the Volturi, then …" She paused.

"I don't know. I've never had multiple gifts to copy. But in theory, I should be able to inflict pain like Jane. I should be able to cut off all your feelings like Alec. I should be able to read relationships, like Marcus. Gather people's thought by touching them like Aro. And tracking everybody down, like Demetri. So all of them being together makes me stronger, not them. If it was just Felix, the ungifted big muscle guy, I wouldn't stand a chance. It's their gifts that make them vulnerable."

Leila thought over all that new information … I led up a new cigarette. "And why take the risk? You don't know what will happen. You don't know if you can defeat them."

I answered, almost cheerfully "Leila, for almost a century now, I've been hiding from them. And it would go on, and on, and on, because I don't die, and neither do they. I'd be hiding for the rest of eternity. Until they find out about me, then they kill me. I don't want to hide. And if it's either Aro's life or mine, I'm selfish enough to choose mine over his. The collector has to die. If the others stay to protect him, so will they. Or they'll kill me. I take my chance here, I can gain too much.

Leila looked at me, frightened. "Tell me… are you afraid because of me, or because I might get hurt, or because you're sitting next to a monster?"  
>"You're not a monster!" She said too quickly. I was certain she wasn't one-hundred percent comfortable next to me – who would be? But she must figure that if I haven't killed her in the past five years, I had no reason to do it now. "To answer your question, I'm afraid for you to get hurt. From what you've told me, these Volturis and their guard are the most deadly 'special unit' on the planet".<br>"Correct." I answered drily, not bothering about taking the cigarette from my lips.  
>"So how on earth are you going to win that fight? It will be twentyish vampire-killers against a single half-vampire. There is no scenario in which you'll make it out alive!"<br>"I won't be fighting alone." We looked at each other.  
>"You want me to help you?" She said offering, yet in disbelieve.<br>"No! Absolutely not Leila. No offense, but you wouldn't do much good. You'll be hiding somewhere. If Aro reads my thoughts, he'll know that you know, and you'd be hunted down. Therefore he has to die, or at least not read my thoughts. Besides, you've already done more than enough by getting me that flight."  
>"By getting us that flight", she corrected me, "but who will be fighting with you?"<p>

"Have you read the newspaper in the past couple of months about Seattle?" I asked. "There wasn't much news about it back in Germany, but it sure made it to page three from time to time".  
>"Wasn't there a serial killer? The most deadly one the USA has seen in their history?"<br>"Yup. Only, it wasn't a serial killer. Completely random victims, sometimes four at a time, never any clues for the police to find, never any traces of the murderer. That was definitely vampire's work. I can't put it all together just now, because the killing stopped some months ago. Why would the Volturi go now when the killing ended? But this is no coincidence; surely the killing spree is in some way connected to their visit."  
>"What is your theory on how it's connected?" She asked.<br>"I don't have one, but this I know. The Volturi don't leave Volterra. Period. The guard yes, or at least part of it, but not every single member of their coven. And I'm sure they don't fly to Seattle to enjoy some family vacation in the cold mist. They have vampire business to do. They have some powerful enemy to get rid of. And this enemy is who I'll team up with. I just need to find them before the Volturi do. But we have a head start."

"Find them? How? We just have a couple of hours, and Seattle is huge." She pointed out.  
>I smiled and pointed to my nose. "I can smell vamps. They can smell me too, only they've never smelled anything like me, so I think they confuse me for some kind of animal and let it go. I use my sense of smell to stay out of their way. I just do the opposite this time. Twentyish Volturis, an equally large coven for them to destroy, that's fifty vamps who have to get to the same place at the same time somehow. They'll be leaving tracks all over the city."<p>

We've been racing towards Fort Lauderdale. The journey across Florida took less than an hour. Time to make one phone call I had to make before getting into the airport.


End file.
